Friday, May 06, 2016

Sonic Youth's "Spinhead Sessions", "The Spectacular Now" extracts

The rock star thing has always felt dishonest to me—stylized and gestural, even goofy. I’ve always felt uncomfortable giving people what they want or expect. Lydia Lunch just stood there onstage, refusing to move. “Lydia Lunch is a genius!,” Dan Graham said: “She is really frigid — see how she doesn’t move her body at all? She doesn’t want to give anything to the audience.” Even though Lydia had a much scarier persona, I could relate to that. Still, I’ve always believed that the radical is far more interesting when it looks benign and ordinary on the outside. I had no idea what image I projected onstage or off, but I was willing to let myself be unknown forever. Self-consciousness was the beginning of creative death to me. As J. Mascis of Dinosaur Jr. liked to say when asked about being in a band, “It’s not fun. It’s not about having fun.” Bruce Pavitt, who founded the record label Sub Pop, told me that if I liked Mudhoney I’d “love Nirvana.” He added, “Kurt Cobain is like Jesus. People love him. He practically walks on the audience.” —"Girl in a Band" (2015) by Kim Gordon

In 1986, after they released Evol, Sonic Youth worked on the score to Ken Friedman's film Made in U.S.A. Before they finalized the soundtrack, they recorded some rehearsal sessions. Those recordings, made at a studio called Spinhead, have been collected and are being released this summer. Spinhead Sessions is out June 17 via Goofin'. Source: pitchfork.com

"I am a romantic. I am in love with the feminine species. I have to withdraw everything I ever said about this girl not being hot. Without her goofy horse-face Tshirts and the off-brand, baggy-butt jeans, her body is absolutely fabulous. I’m not talking about gaudy curves. It’s more that her skin is so pristine. Alabaster in the glow of the digital clock. “Nudity,” I tell her, “looks awesome on you.” I actually find the movie and her commentary interesting, especially after she hits a couple of vodkas and really starts cranking. It’s one of those movies set in a screwed-up society in the near future. Totalitarianism rules. Half the characters look like refugees from a seventies punk-rock club and the other half look like space Nazis. It’s strange being on her bed in the middle of a room full of sci-fi novels and drawings of Commander Amanda Gallico on horseback."

"You might think it would be the least sexy place in the world, but that’s not the case. Instead, it’s mega-intimate, like we’re alone together in our own little, weird space capsule, hurtling through the universe. “I like you so much,” she says between kisses. And I can tell she wants to say love instead of like, not because she really does love me but because she just wants to say it." —"The Spectacular Now" (2013) by Tim Tharp